Trump nytimes today8/13/2023 I tried to offset that by talking to a half-dozen people I know who have either high wealth or are familiar in a detailed way with the strategies of people in that sphere. Much of the commentary on the complexities of Trump’s finances in coming days will be flowing from political and media types who can be stumped by filling out their expense accounts. There’s no point to being a big tax dodger unless there is big money coming through the door. These two criticisms are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but they do jostle for primacy. His finances, the Times said, are “beset by losses and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt coming due that he has personally guaranteed.” A CNN analysis by Stephen Collison said “Trump’s image is a sham” and that he is “ a pitifully inept businessman.” Trump is a phony, who really is not that great at business after all. Trump is a tax cheat, using unscrupulous schemes to avoid paying huge sums that the government is fairly owed. The criticism flowed simultaneously in two directions: But there was at least a mild tension in the story, amplified by the reaction of Trump critics. The Times story, by reporters Russ Buettner, Susanne Craig and Mike McIntire (and surely backed by a large team of editors and lawyers), was appropriately skeptical in contrasting the Trump myth with the reality embedded in the tax returns. But it’s also true that there is real money pumping through the Trump empire, including what the Times described as $425 million from his half-ownership of his reality TV show, “The Apprentice,” as well as “licensing and endorsement deals that flowed from his expanding celebrity.” Several of his golf courses and other ventures look to be sucking wind financially. His taxes confirm that he does not have some kind of Midas touch. It looks more accurate to say it is partial illusion. Trump critics were eager to see in the Times report that the Trump reputation is total illusion. It is a simple fact that in this intersection of self-promotion, self-enrichment, and self-protection Trump has a mind that operates at a different level than most, and he has used it to fashion a historic career. The taxes also highlight his ability to fully merge his personal and professional lives, in which houses and jets and hair stylists become business expenses (in some cases suspect ones). Profit gets paid out in multiple ways: money, of course, but also reputational currency. Trump’s genius, as illuminated by the Times, isn’t simply for self-promotion but for harnessing self-promotion to a coherent and comprehensive strategy for personal gain. There are some people who possess genius of a certain type in certain arenas who might actually qualify as kind of dumb when it comes to more conventional intelligence of the sort measured in conventional arenas. Genius, in this context, means something more than “very smart.” It means an ability to see connections and possibilities in circumstances that even people who are smart in conventional ways do not see. What we learned from Trump’s taxes does suggest he possesses an astonishing gift which could reasonably be called “genius” - if you accept that as a descriptive word rather than a term of praise. “Stable” is hardly the right word to describe the reality of hundreds of millions of dollars in loans coming due, a long battle with the IRS over a questionable $72.9 million tax refund, scores of dodgy deductions and dubious consulting arrangements with family members, all woven into a financial structure that revolves around the personal brand of a 74-year-old man with a history of bankruptcies, severed personal relationships and increasingly erratic behavior.īut it is the noun that Trump cares most about. As far as Trump’s finances, the Times does indeed demolish the adjective.
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